by Margaret Sirois
What better way to spend a Sunday afternoon than a guided walk through the Blackwell Heritage Preserve with Dan Whitten and Dr. Gillian Newberry!
The bunched arrowhead (Sagittaria fasciculata) was in flower as expected. It was a personal first for me as I’d seen the plant but never in bloom. At first glance the seep habitat this plant requires looks like a wetland, but the water is shallow and always flowing.
We also found the rare dwarf-flowered heartleaf (Hexastylis naniflora). Rather than attempt my own description, I refer you to a recent SCNPS newsletter articles:
Narrow-pod wild white indigo (Baptisia albescens) was in bloom. The grassy fields were a perfect setting to showcase these bright white, showy flowers. Southern beardtongue (Penstemon australis) was also in perfect bloom.
Lichens are sometimes overlooked in our enthusiasm to find spring wildflowers, but with Gill Newberry along – not so! She showed us a soft moist specimen of reindeer lichen (Cladonia rangiferina). We learned that Gill has a PhD in lichenology – how cool is that? Most of us are probably used to calling this species reindeer moss, but it is a lichen in the Kingdom Fungi and is a mutualistic relationship between a fungi and an alga.
Blackwell Heritage Preserve exists today thanks to the efforts of many including: Upstate Forever, Southern Environmental Law Center and the SC Native Plant Society. A very special thanks to Frank Holleman.